Luis Posada Carriles Released From Jail

* Amy:

"Luis Posada Carriles Released From Jail
Luis Posada Carriles has been released from jail. Posada is the anti-Castro Cuban militant connected to the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. He is a former CIA operative who has worked for years to bring down the Cuban government. But he is considered a terrorist by many because of his role in the 1976 airline bombing. He has been detained in the U.S. on immigration charges since he snuck into the country in 2005. On Thursday Venezuela accused Washington of being an "accomplice" of terrorism by allowing Posada to be released from jail.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez: Of course all of Venezuela will raise its indignant voice over the protection that the imperialist government of the United States continues to give to the father of all the terrorists of all time on the American continent; the murderer Luis Posada Carriles. We demand that they extradite to Venezuela this terrorist and murderer, instead of continue to protect him as they are protecting him. And now they are practically in the process of liberating him."

Posada will go on trial in May on immigration fraud charges. The U.S. is rejecting calls for him to be extradited to Cuba or Venezuela."

good terrorists.

* Amy:

Trial Opens on Leaked Memo About Bush Bombing Al Jazeera
In London, a British government official and a former political researcher are on trial this week for leaking a classified memo that revealed President Bush wanted to bomb the headquarters of Al Jazeera in Doha. Bush reportedly made the comment to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a meeting in April 2004. A memo discussing Bush's comments was then leaked to the British newspaper the Daily Mirror. On the day before Bush met with Blair, then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld characterized Al Jazeera's reporting on the Iraq war as "vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable." Rumsfeld said "It's disgraceful what that station is doing." The U.S. never attacked Al Jazeera's Doha headquarters but it has targeted Al Jazeera on other occasions. Investigative journalist Ron Suskind has revealed the U.S. deliberately bombed Al Jazeera's offices in Kabul Afghanistan in 2001 in order to send a message to the network. In April 2003, Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayyoub was killed by a U.S. missile while reporting from Al Jazeera's offices in Baghdad.

* scarecrow at fdl:

"Every day the WH opens the WaPo or NYT, they have to worry about what the next whistleblower will reveal or which of their supporters is being investigated. If this keeps up — and it will — pretty soon the only sane person who won’t be clamoring to clear the table for a joint impeachment will be Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker who is consistently earning the respect and support of the American people but who cannot ask for impeachment because she understands the conflict. But we won’t know because the Beltway media, who should be talking about this, remain clueless or in denial about how angry and oh so done this country is with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney."

* swopa at FDL:

"In a sense, the problem with advocating impeachment is that it would take too long; it's a protracted legal process, when what the people need is immediate action. A friend (and now co-blogger) told me many years ago that he hated those "Question Authority" bumper stickers: the motto he preferred was "Assume Authority."

That's what Pelosi and Reid need to do now. They should make clear that it's not something they do lightly, but the President has become incapacitated — paralyzed by his unwillingness to admit mistakes — and so they are exercising their moral (and Constitutional) duty to step in and take charge. It's getting to the point where the public will not only back them up, it's begging them to do it."

* your president speaks (where the hell is Don?):

"Diplomacy works when people sit down at the table and need something from you. That's how diplomacy works. It is, in my judgment, just talking for the sake of talking doesn't yield positive results often."

and again:

"I'm afraid that Israel will ultimately be overrun by demographics in order for her to remain a Jewish democratic state."